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All Rise...

Judge Joel Pearce has a $10 bounty on his head. He's hoping to avoid any really desperate bounty hunters.

The Charge

Ben: The just have yet to make their way west. Bartender: Now, you'll
find it hard to find water in the desert, too. Ben: You just need to know
where to look. Bartender: Yeah, but it's still a desert.

Opening Statement

With a bit of winking fun, a fresh storyline or a major script overhaul,
Bounty may have been a fun little indie Western. As it stands, this is 90
minutes of the wild west I can't recommend to anyone. Between the
quasi-philosophical dialogue, poor plotting, and bad shootouts, this is one
Western that will have even the most diehard fans ducking for cover.

Facts of the Case

Ben (Bruce Isham) rescues Nate (Jarret LeMaster) from the gallows. To help
Nate dodge a debt, Ben takes him on the road as a bounty hunter. In a small town
(which seems to consist of a saloon, the sheriff's office and a stable) they
find Em (Michelle Acuna, Parasite),
an outlaw who has been captured by the local sheriff. Nate kidnaps her, partly
to save her life and partly to collect the bounty himself. They find themselves
on the run from the law, falling in love but unable to trust one another. Much
Western-related silliness ensues.

The Evidence

Of all the genres in film history, the Western might be the most overdone.
New Westerns need to bring something new to the table, or they just play as pale
shadows of what's come before—and probably been done better. It's hard to
know what first-time writer/director Jake Isham wanted to accomplish with
Bounty, but I fear he was equipped with little more than a passion for
the genre and a vague ambition to make his own. It turns out that's not
enough.

The biggest problem is the dialogue. Maybe it's because I've been basking in
the heightened poetics of Deadwood lately, but I really had
to stifle giggles when I came to conversations like this:

Ben: Justice? This is the west, kid. You think you'll find justice here?
Listen, she's right where she's meant to be. The law is a tough thing to
cross. Nate: So that makes it right. Ben: Since when do you get to
decide what's right and what's wrong? You're not God. Nate: And you get to
decide who is? Ben: Don't be stupid. It helps to know the bigger
picture.

Had the actors fully grasped the nature of the production they were in, they
might have embraced the cheese and made it work in a wildly campy way.
Unfortunately, they all play it straight—a constant reminder of the low
production values. It also speaks to the depth of the script and plot. The
biggest questions seem to be how to find justice in the lawless west, and how to
discern right from wrong in ambiguous situations. These are the oldest themes to
grace the genre, and they are feeling pretty tired.

The plot makes an equivalent amount of sense. It's never clear why Nate owes
money in the first place, or what Ben wants to accomplish by bringing him along
on his own bounty hunt. If the woman has a huge bounty on her to be brought in
alive (the poster claims she is a criminal and a theif (sic)), it seems stupid
for this small-town sheriff to hang her himself and lose out on the $800. Pretty
much everything else in the film runs on autopilot, and the surprise reveal of
the bad guy's true identity will only come as a surprise to someone who fell
asleep for half the film. Falling asleep is, I assure you, a possibility.

I have a soft spot for true indie productions. I love it when first-time
directors can create something new and do for thousands of dollars what
professionals can't do for millions. Bounty just exists as a reminder to
these first-time directors that indie filmmakers can't beat the pros at their
own game. Instead, they need to make the kinds of films that studios can't.
Generic Westerns are the kind of film that studios have been making successfully
for decades.

The DVD itself is ugly as sin. While it has some decent cinematography,
especially the high-contrast look of the town, it's not enough to hide the
plywood walls and cheap costumes. Although it was shot in digital 720p, many of
the sequences are highly compressed, looking more like a YouTube video than a
DVD transfer. The sound transfer is in 5.1, but rarely draws attention to
itself. In terms of special features, we do get deleted scenes and commentary,
delivered by the very enthusiastic folks who created the film itself. From the
discussion here, it's clear that Isham has a broad knowledge of the genre, which
makes me wonder even more why Bounty didn't end up better.

Closing Statement

I hate writing such negative reviews for low budget productions. My main
responsibility, however, is to advise the readers of DVD Verdict. In that
capacity, I recommend you stay far away from Bounty. It's not worth the
time, especially with so many better Westerns available.

The Verdict

There's now an $800 bounty on this film for being a "theif" of my
time. Dead, not alive.